Dear Family & Friends,

Happy New Year! I hope you all got to ring in 2025 in good health and happiness. Mom, Dad, and Richard got to celebrate “Bonne Année!” Togolese style this year. We arrived in the afternoon of December 30th and my village put on a big welcome of singing and dancing for them. Mom came up and danced with me which made everyone very happy. On New Year’s Eve, our first full day, we walked around my neighborhood a bit. They saw the new hospital, the little soja & tchouk market, my tailor’s workshop, and all the fields and sights in between. In my community the big celebration starts on January 1st: people walk around the village, greet their friends and family, eat lots, and drink lots of palm wine and tchouk (local beer). My work partner Monsieur Tchangani accompanied us on our tour of three neighborhoods: Tchamde (my neighborhood), Koukoude (where I am working on the water pump and garden), and Kpedah (where my tutor lives and where I have given lots of health talks). We stopped by the school on the way. It was school vacation but they got to see the compost pile and the garden location.

Everyone was so welcoming and excited to meet my family. Each day we came home to delicious food — Maman was cooking up a storm for us. Throughout the whole visit lots of folks just stopped by to say hello to my family. Simply put, it was a very joyful time. I got to show off my little house and new porch.

We remembered to take photos, which means I also have photos with some of my most important people at last! I hope you all enjoy them, they can be your own tour of my village.

This is all just a little slice of the family trip, but in my opinion it was the best part. We did a tour of Benin before the village visit. It was a good tour. For me, it was interesting to see this neighboring country which shares so much history and culture with Togo. (Ethnic groups are not neatly divided on state boundaries in Africa (surprise surprise!)). But it was a bit of a funhouse mirror effect to be in Benin: I understood generally what was happening, but it was almost a distorted and slightly “off” from my experience in Togo/Kabye country. I became eager to show my real home, not just something almost like it. I’ll share more about Benin soon.

We left the village on January 2nd to start moving our way south. On the 3rd, Mom, Dad, and Richard got to enjoy the Kpalime area for a day while I took care of getting Zorro’s paperwork in order. I’m doing my best to bring the little guy back to America 🙂 My family rejoined me in Lome (Togo’s capitol). We relaxed over some good food and got to talk about their experience. As one last cultural experience, the next day they got to see me and Zorro loaded into a bush taxi and sent north. Loaded up with two motorcycles, a bicycle, and numerous pieces of luggage on top, it was quite a change from our nice van with AC! Zorro and I made it back safe and sound though. We stopped in Sokode to celebrate a triple birthday weekend before getting home the next day.

I’m very grateful to my family for visiting (and being the kind of people who want to visit somewhere so far away and different!). Everyone in village kept sayig they have “grand amour” (“big love”) for me and Togo to come all this way. I agree! I am also so so so grateful to be in a welcoming, energizing, loving community in Togo. People were so eager to meet my family. We were fed so well and gifted so much wine and beer. The welcome was non stop. Since my arrival back in town, the greetings I receive now include questions over my family’s arrival in the US and their health. Everyone gets woven into the fabric of community.

Throughout all of this traveling, I have been working hard to get the water pump and garden project off the ground. Water has been found at 112 meters! So it’s going very well! I’ll write more on that soon.

Bonne année everyone!

love,

J

P.S. I did my best to upload some of the videos of the welcome parade here, but alas Word Press is a bit finicky. If the videos don’t seem to work let me know and I will send you a copy direct.